


Hey Ya!

by rotosalt (orphan_account)



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-14
Updated: 2016-06-14
Packaged: 2018-07-15 01:08:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7199303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/rotosalt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My baby don't mess around...</p><p>(Not as cheery as that exclamation point may suggest. Based on an edit by røyalty on vine I saw and the song.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hey Ya!

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't checked for errors, so please tell me if you see any.

He runs his fingers down his arm slowly. In that moment, everything is the slight tickle, the tingling where skin had been against skin. His fingers ghost over his arm like his breath ghosts over his neck. A true phantom to make his heart flutter against his chest.

Josh lived for nights like this.

Nights where they curled up beside one another and sat contemplating the other's existence. Contemplating the planes of skin stretched over muscle and bone. The way scars dipped and goosebumps raised under their fingertips. The way the dim light cast a slightly yellow glow over everything. 

Their bodies were charted territory to one another, a path in the woods, worn in by lips and tongues and fingertips. Shaped by teeth and palms and nails.

On nights like this Tyler took the time to let his hands roam. To let nails scrape over his skin lightly. To let fingers press into flesh and skim over bone. To ingrain the shape of his fingerprints into his being.

Josh did the same. He took a more careful approach to it, though. He let his hand hover before gently placing it onto flesh, before rubbing shapes into skin and comforts into bone.

They worked in tandem, lips pressed into necks and against jaws and on the top of noses and at the corners of mouths. Fingertips exploring, still enraptured by the familiar area. Teeth and nails scraping, palms and tongues dancing.

On nights like these they took the time to worship one another. They took the time to build a home only to take it apart and start building once more.

By the time the house is built for a third time Josh would swear he knows every pore on Tyler's body like he knows the back of his hand.

He'd swear he knows every inch of Tyler, swear that he knows the depths of his mind. Can read his thoughts in his fingerprints, can taste his worries against his lips.

He swears this, they go on stage, and he comes back wanting to press himself back into Tyler's skin and read those new thoughts.

Tonight they are two parts of a whole, as cliché as it sounds. They kiss slowly, languidly, gently. Tyler's hand is on the bare skin of his back. He prepares Josh just as slowly as they kiss, fingers twisting and scissoring until Josh is a panting mess beneath him. He attaches his mouth to Josh's collarbone and they are simply two souls combined.

Everything is slow, Tyler's thrusts, Josh's hands moving down his chest and back and arms. Tyler is muttering into his ear, petnames and whispers of _"I love you"_ and compliments about how beautiful Josh looked.

"Oh, Josh, you're so beautiful, baby. I love you. I love you. Darling. Sweetheart."

They come down from their high just as slow as everything else had gone. When they fall asleep they're a tangle of limbs. 

They weren't secretive about their actions, but they were private enough that no one really knew for sure. Whatever they were was their little secret, enough of a secret that it stayed "whatever they were," never fully blossoming into labels. It was just the press of skin, the clack of teeth. Quiet nights leading to quiet mornings.

The thing is, everything can fall apart too easily. Sand falls through fingertips, dirt turns to mud, clay begins to crack. Josh hadn't noticed his world burning around him.

He had nature in his eyes and forest fires had become as familiar as the forest itself. Too many prescribed burns gone awry, too many lighting strikes and campfires. He had grown numb to the presence of flame so he'd hardly noticed the trees burning to the ground.

Now everything was gone and all Josh had left was ashes. Ashes that fall through his hand like sand, get blown away in a slight breeze, smell like the colour orange. Bright orange, like the fruit, or a traffic cone. Not the soft peaches and pastels he was so used to. This smelled like fire and brimstone and burning your fingers on pans and your toes on hot cement.

He had nothing but fire and brimstone ashes and the memory of Tyler's skin beneath his.

He tells him about their dates. Everything sounds absolutely perfect, sounds like something so very _Tyler_. So infinitely intricate, so rapturously romantic. He tells him about their dates.

Then he curls up beside Josh and sings him to sleep while running his hand up and down his arm, torturously tender. When he wakes up the birds still chirp the same, the cars still make too much noise. Nothing feels any different until he turns over and smells coconut  scented shampoo.

Tyler didn't use coconut scented shampoo.

He still lets himself shove his nose into Tyler's hair. Still lets himself wrap a protective arm around the slightly smaller figure beside him. He falls back asleep to the sounds of soft breathing and birds chirping and cars buzzing.

Her eyes are the shallow end of the swimming pool, crystal clear and light, piercing blue.  Lumbal ring thick and dark, contrasting with those popsicle, swimming pool, clean linen irises.

Her hands are thin and soft just like the rest of her features. Josh knows she's not weak, but she's unbearably soft, free of jagged edges and hardened planes of muscle. She's got that curvy hourglass figure that everyone has been told to dream of. Girls are supposed to want it, guys are supposed to want girls to have it.

She's undeniably one of the most beautiful creatures Josh has ever seen. He says creature because there's no way she's human, he's never seen a human glow like that.  Which meant she was perfect for Tyler.

Two beautiful, irreplaceable, fantastic _creatures_.

Josh chooses not think anymore. This time as Tyler curls up against him he lets himself focus on that. Lets himself focus on the way his eyes flutter shut, eyelashes grazing  tanned cheeks. The way his lips nearly fall open and a little drool pools at the corner of his mouth. The way the air conditioner kicks on and he nuzzles further into Josh's chest.

He's scared of what he might think of if he doesn't focus on Tyler. Scared he'll have to set fire to ashes. He's tired of setting fire to ashes.

So he decides to try and grow new trees.

He starts dating Debby. She's absolutely wonderful, truly a gift to this world. Ethereal. She has soft hair and soft hands and soft features. She has these beautiful eyes, brown but not just brown. No, she could never be that simple. They're honeyed, slightly golden like she's taken a trip to the depths of space and came back with pools of stars for eyes.

They're so much warmer than stars though. Stars are hot in temperature but they're not warm like a home. They don't feel like freshly dried blankets or old books, but her eyes do. Her eyes feel like a home and Josh runs with that as he plants new trees.

He still sleeps next to Tyler whenever possible. It's not a decision he necessarily makes, as it is a decision he accepts. He lays down and waits for Tyler to crawl in beside him.

Everything is alright. It's alright. Tyler's hair still smells like coconuts but Josh's clothes smell like lavender now and so they're even. Things are changing and that's okay. He doesn't think about how things are changing because trees are growing and he thinks one day he might have that forest back.

So things are changing and that's okay.

Debby makes him insanely happy. She's incredible. Trees have never grown so quickly. He takes her on cute dates that tells Tyler about. He kisses her and hugs her and laughs with her.

Eventually he tells her that he loves her and those trees shoot up like crazy when she says it back. It wasn't hard to say, just a few words. They flowed from his mouth with practiced ease. There was no telling how many times he'd told Tyler those same three words.

Tyler. Tyler is the happiest Josh had ever seen. He's so unabashedly in love, that kind of love you think only exists in fairytales. But he looks at her like she slayed three dragons to get to him. Like he's loved her in all of his past lives. Like they've been married for eons. Romeo and Juliet paled in comparison to them.

Tyler wasn't looking at him that way, but he was the happiest Josh had ever seen. And there was nothing worth more to him than Tyler's happiness.

Things stayed that way for a little while. Trees growing, smiles on faces. Tyler didn't tell him about this, though. He told him about dates and how soft her hair was and what her parents were like. But he didn't tell him about _this_.

He sees the ring and suddenly his trees are on fire again. There's still ashes on the ground but there's a matchbook in his hand. There's a matchbook in his hand and the smell of gas fills his nostrils and his trees are on fire. He was tired of burning ashes so he grew new trees. He grew new trees knowing he'd burn them. He could never be tired of burning trees. The smell of gas fills his nostrils. He's got a matchbook in his hand. His trees are on fire. His trees are on fire. The smell of gas. Matchbook. Fire. Gas. Fire. Matchbook. Fire. Ashes.

Tyler doesn't curl up next to him that night. Nor does he the next, or the next, or the next. Days fly by. Debby is by his side, she can tell that something is wrong but it's not enough to have her empathy. He wants Tyler.

He thinks about it every single day. The smell of gas fills his nostrils, he's sick and tired of setting fire to ashes. Ashes don't burn like trees do. Ashes don't burn. You can't burn ashes. His fingertips are white hot and scarred.

Josh looks pretty tough. But he's gentle and soft like the kittens that he loves so much, or his favourite pair of socks. So when he breaks it off with Debby he spends hours crying. She says it's alright, it's alright. She says she understands.

They make eye contact and despite not having told her anything, he truly believes that she does. She understands. He begins to wonder if it's that obvious. Wonders if everyone can see.

Their wedding is stunning. He probably would have thought of it as _Tyler's_ wedding had it been to anyone other than Jenna. But together, they truly are a whole. They're not Tyler and Jenna, they're TylerandJenna. People would probably say the same about him and Tyler but it wasn't true, or, it wasn't nearly as true.

When they finally let those words slip from their mouths, carefully thought out _'I do'_ s, Tyler kisses her. Josh stands there and claps, just as everyone else was. He smiles because he has to, but in his mind he's trying to set fire to ashes again. All these fruitless attempts and he still hadn't learned that _ashes don't burn_. It's the most passionate kiss he'd ever seen off-screen. They gave Noah and Allie a good run for their money.

Tyler never kissed him like that. Tyler had kissed him with the gentlest of movements, like he was afraid of something. The roughest Tyler had ever been with him was after that show at the Newport Music Hall in Columbus. After they'd performed E.T. by Katy Perry, they'd both gotten riled up and Tyler had pushed him back against as wall.

The kiss was far from painfully rough, but pretty far from the usual gentle sliding of lips.

That's a bit like how Tyler was kissing Jenna now, except it wasn't at all. This was _love_. This is what passion looked like. Josh looked like lust and Jenna looked like love and he didn't think that could've been any different.

Gas. Matchbook. Fire. Gas.

The next time he sees Tyler, _truly_ sees him, after all of this marriage business is over, it's eleven at night. Tyler looks like the pale stars that fill the sky, he looks like the stars and the moon. He glows brighter than the stars though, brighter than the moon, too. He sets off his own light and it's more beautiful than the night sky.

He spends too much time contemplating what a soulmate is. It's someone who completes you. Someone who everything clicks with. Even when you argue you can't stay mad at them because you remember how much you love them. It's someone who you would never hurt. Someone who would never hurt you. It's the first person you think of when you're asked who you'd take a bullet for.

Josh thinks this whole soulmate thing isn't like what people think. It's more of a personal thing. Josh thinks his soulmate is Tyler. Josh thinks Tyler's soulmate is Jenna and Jenna's soulmate is Tyler.

Soulmates aren't necessarily destined to be together, sometimes they're even destined to fall apart. But soulmates are always destined to love one another, even if it isn't the same kind of love.

Josh is okay with that.

That night Tyler curls up beside him again. Josh tenses up but lets him slide his arm over his side. Lets him bury his nose in his hair. As he speaks, Josh can feel his mouth against the skin of his neck.

"I missed you."

The smell of gas fills his nostrils. There's a matchbook in his hand. His fingertips burn, and so does the gas, but the ashes remain. They always do. Matchbook. Fire. Gas. Fire. Matchbook. Fire. Gas.  Matchbook. 

Fire.

**Author's Note:**

> I have no clue why I do this. Also, I don't advocate cheating. I'm like 99% sure there's no cheating in this one, but just to be safe ya know. I don't advocate it, but it adds drama and I like drama so I write it. A LOT. sorry.


End file.
